


Landslide

by ticktockclockwork



Series: Another Machine That Won't Stop [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, gratuitous fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-03
Updated: 2012-06-03
Packaged: 2017-11-06 17:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/421331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ticktockclockwork/pseuds/ticktockclockwork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Original post + chapter graphic: <a href="http://ticktockclockwork.tumblr.com/post/24309002064/it-wasnt-every-night-that-sherlock-watched-john">Click here</a></p></blockquote>





	Landslide

It wasn’t every night that Sherlock watched John sleep. It wasn’t even every week. Sometimes Sherlock could go a whole month without ever getting the fancy to check on his mechanic. But on those nights where worry bloomed and robot knowledge turned to human instinct, Sherlock would find himself climbing the stairs of 221B Baker Street, and turning the knob ever so quietly to peek into John’s room. What he would find never failed to surprise him.

Some nights John was just murmuring in his sleep, no rhyme or reason to what he was saying, not that Sherlock could discern. Each time he found John like that he considered attaching electrodes to his head to try and record what he was dreaming, hoping to make sense of the babble spilling from John’s lips. But the last (and only) time he’d done that he’d been shouted at for a good ten minutes that next morning about how John was NOT a science experiment and not to be tested on. He’d resisted under threat of a system reconfiguration if he’d even so much as brought those electrodes past the first step of that flat again. John would turn him into a quibbling toddler. And the thought alone was offensive enough to keep his urges to himself as far as experiments were concerned.

But some nights were bad, filled with fitful sleeping and jerking movements. These were the times Sherlock wished most of all that he could see within John’s mind, see what was making him restless and agitated. These were the night where Sherlock wished he were human, wished he knew how to help, how to fix what John was dealing with. But when John would wake he would wave off any comment on the matter of his nightmares and explain it away as bad take-away.

Sherlock knew it wasn’t the take-away. He’d tested the theory of take-away and had found that John suffered from nightmares regardless of what they ate. Though, it must be observed, that cheap Mexican food made the nightmares worse.

No it was more, more than just food, or work, or their crimes. It was more than stress, or the moon, or horror movies. It was more, just as John was more. It was complicated, just as John was complicated. And it was just as shrouded from Sherlock as John was because for however long John had been living at 221B Baker Street, he still remained a complete mystery to Sherlock.

Oh, Sherlock knew his past as well as he knew his own. He knew of his parents, now deceased, of his sister and her vices. He knew of Clara and Janet and Mike (Harry was just experimenting, it was just a phase) and then back to Clara once again. He knew of their childhood home, knew the schematics and had pictures, he knew of John’s schools and his friends. He knew of his girlfriends and the disastrous relationships some had been and he knew, too, of the ones that were fantastic. He knew of the car crash that took his dad and the grief that took his mum. He knew of the funeral and the wake, the birthday parties and the moving around. He knew of how John came to know Mycroft and then came to know him. And he knew of how he came to be so inseparably reliant on John,

But he did not know John, the man, the human.

He did not know why John liked his toast with jam in the mornings or why sometimes strawberry jam no longer tasted good. He did not know why John brushed his teeth from right to left or why he hummed old Stevie Nicks when he was reading the paper. He didn’t know why he showered in the morning except on the nights that he’d gone out drinking with his friends, nor why he ever went out with them in the first place. He didn’t know why John opened the windows but closed the curtains in the spring or why he never read the obituaries and used them first to start fires in the winter.

And there was more still. He didn’t know who the man was when he thought no one was looking. He didn’t know the look of distance that would cross John’s eyes when things were quiet or the one that pushed that one away just as quickly. He didn’t know the John who would grab his hand when he was too close to the burners despite the knowledge that he couldn’t burn. He didn’t know why John would leave in the eve, upset and quiet, but return early that next morning, so early no other human should be awake, looking guilty, upset.

He didn’t know the John that would follow him across the city in the dead of winter when they were both drenched to the bone and hadn’t slept in days. He didn’t know the John who would laugh when he tripped, or croon when he got something wrong. He didn’t know the John who could smile when he was sad. The John that could live for others but not himself. The John that took three bullets to the chest for him. The John that died for him and came back to life for him.

No, Sherlock did not know this John. And he did not think he would ever know this John. And the sadness that swept over him from this thought was wretched and wicked and he grew angry rather than despondent. He hated feeling compromised, hated feeling weak and it was John that always brought him to his knees. It was this aging human that brought this ageless Sherlock down. Why could John do this? Why did he have this power?

Sherlock would never know this either.

With his head resting against the frame of John’s door, Sherlock watched the man who had saved him, his Mechanic, _his_ John, fight with whatever wicked demons were wreaking havoc on his mind. He watched him grip tight to the blanket half wrapped around him, watched his leg twitch and his chest heave with words he couldn’t get out. He watched the angry scars dance wildly on John’s chest, permanent reminders of John’s trip to the River Styx and back. He watched and he wondered and he fretted and his warred with himself because he did not know this John most of all. The one so far from him, taking part in an activity that would never, _ever_ be part of Sherlock’s world and lost… somewhere Sherlock couldn’t go.

And he knew his limitations in all of this, knew how distant the realm of sleeping was from his fingertips and how defining the simple necessary activity was for humans. Humans dreamed, humans rested and slept and did all that. It was a definition of what a human needed. But Sherlock did not need this and he never would. And if he was put to sleep he certainly wouldn’t dream. Not like this. Not like John. And some nights, oh some nights, Sherlock wished he could dream like John.

Even nights like these. For if he dreamed, he proposed, if he dreamed then perhaps he could help. Because every morning that John found Sherlock watching him and between the sleepy genial offhand comments about take-away and horror movies, Sherlock saw the fleeting disappointment at another test he had failed. John never wanted him to see it, that much was obvious, but there was little Sherlock missed and that most of all was what he looked for now. He never did it right, never even knew WHAT he wasn’t doing right. He just knew there was something, _something pivotal_ and strange and incomprehensible that he just was not doing and each time he did not do this strange, incomprehensible thing, he failed. And his failures disappointed John.

And that devastated him.

He’d failed John so many times. Sometimes small things, sometimes large. But this thing, this private thing that was so over his head it might as well be planetary, was big. Jupiter big. Twin supernovae big. And he was missing it. All the time. And no matter how long he stood there, how long he waited and ran numbers and crunched figures and scanned his philosophy texts and moral manuals. No matter how long he thought, he could never find the answer. The answer that went to his ultimate question: John.

But this, this tearing, awful sight of John suffering with no support was too much. If there was ever something he hated more than missing the biggest puzzle he’d found, it was this. John was suffering, quiet but bad, and he could do nothing more than stand here and think. That wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t good enough. But John was still with him and that had to count for something. He was not good enough to figure this problem out, not intelligent enough, not powerful enough.

And he never would be.

Pushing away from the wall, depression and sorrow weighing down on his frame like Sisyphus and his boulder, Sherlock made his way over to John’s bed. The gift of human emotions was nothing more than a baneful curse at the moment, and he’d tell Mycroft this very thing tomorrow morning. But right now he would not leave John’s side. If he could do nothing more then he’d at least do that. He may be useless in all other regards but he was not one to desert John.

Sliding his slippers and robe off and allowing them to drop to the chair by John’s bed, Sherlock shifted one knee then the other atop the mattress. He stayed still as the padding dipped and John shifted away from the intrusion, turning to his other side, back to Sherlock. Moving forward until he had enough room to reposition himself, Sherlock then slid down to lay behind John. He was hesitant, in every action he made, every shift of position for each time he did move, so would John.

He waited, just a heavy presence behind his mechanic, until John stilled. And then he shifted once more and slid his arm under John’s, tucking against his soft waist. He pulled the smaller man closer, burying his nose in the man’s sandy flecked hair, re-memorizing the smell of the one puzzle he’d never solve. His hand searched and found John’s, gripping tight to his sheets, desperate to hold to something for reasons Sherlock would never know. With gentle nudges he got John to relax his fist and allow his fingers to slide between the others, tucking their clasped hands against John’s chest, able now to feel the erratic rhythm of his heart batting against his rib cage, a flurried bird begging to be free.

When he’d determined that no more of John could be touching more of him, save for stripping them both (which John would not appreciate at 3:51 in the morning) Sherlock closed his eyes and just monitored the babump babump babump against his fingers. It was his lullaby, the song John always sang without ever knowing. And slowly, so very, _very_ slowly, it fell back into its normal pace. Strong, but steady, almost leading you to believe it were slowing down as time went on. And it was. John's heartbeat, the universe. Wild and untamed but slowly to its eventual demise. Such a morbid and beautiful thought.

Soon, John was as settled as his heartbeat and then Sherlock relaxed, thanking whatever had been plaguing his John for going to sleep with them. While Sherlock could never join John in slumber, he could at least appreciate the steady silence it sometimes brought from his lover.

By morning he hadn’t moved much, save to accommodate John who had decided to tangle their legs as well. He had considered it, considered leaving John and returning to his room, allowing John to wake in peace as he so often requested. But the thought of permitting any of the nightmares to return in his absence kept him rooted to the bed and wrapped around his mechanic. He couldn’t allow that, even with the knowledge that he’d have to see that look of disappointment in full now, face it with no where to hide, bear it as he deserved.

But when John rolled over, sleep sodden but slowly coming to, no look of frustration passed his eyes. No look of displeasure colored away the smile, the true smile. John instead just turned and watched, thoughts moving fast within his sleep dredged mind. Then he closed his eyes and tucked back against Sherlock’s chest, not quite ready to wake.

And just like that Sherlock knew he had passed.

He didn’t know what he’d done right. Just as he’d never known what he’d done wrong before. He didn’t know what was different now. He’d suffered just as much as John did, just as he always did when John fought with his night terrors. He’d done nothing different except accept his failures and that certainly could not have been what John had wanted. But nonetheless, he knew that he had done right that night and that John, half asleep now but with wandering playful hands, was happy with him.

“Why do you open the windows but close the curtains in the spring?” He asked, quiet as a dove, nosing at John’s temple to whisper in his ear.

He could feel John’s smile against his chest.

“I like to see them blow in the breeze. Like maybe that’s the only way I can see the wind.” He whispered back, just as quiet, just as much between them and only them.

No. The fact was known that Sherlock would never know John, he could never know the why behind his smiles or his humming or his papers. He would never know this John, his John. But he could guess that that was maybe just a little bit okay. Because moments like these were his curtains. And they were the only way he’d get to see the wind.

**Author's Note:**

> Original post + chapter graphic: [Click here](http://ticktockclockwork.tumblr.com/post/24309002064/it-wasnt-every-night-that-sherlock-watched-john)


End file.
